


Meanwhile 1

by Kalium



Series: Manifestations - Book 1 [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Arguing, Community: runaway_tales, Family, Fantasy, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Libraries, Reunions, Snakes, Storytelling, Travel, multiple POVs, multiple timeframes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2013-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-26 00:58:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalium/pseuds/Kalium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of shorts set between arcs 1 (Modern Way) and 2 (Stripped) of Manifestations. Multiple characters, multiple settings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Majiv, after her sons leave.

She was drowning in air. She spent the nights (and the days?) drifting, the world around her insubstantial as water - an ocean in her mind. She walked empty corridors and charred halls when awake and in her dreams, in the spaces between and the times when she did not know which was which. She was alive, yes, ate and slept, but those were quick slivers of her world. The world was this tangle of impossible passages, wooden beams raising stairways to nowhere, walls blackened with soft soot, and it was in this world she sank and drowned.  
  
It was in this world that the shadows roamed.  
  
She dreamt the first times, she remembered that, and sometimes she would whirl around and see Kejik, her eyes lowered. But there were other times. She’d gaze into the forest from a window ledge and be there, running and ducking between sharp, jagged branches, the smell of pine needles in the frozen air, until a figure stood before her, and she would stand her ground... and there she was by the window, blinking in the dim autumn light again. She’d cross the ruined hall and hear a near-silent footstep, and turn to see nothing. Every time it ended with the same words in her head, the same plea, always so close to being spoken. Every time the words froze in her throat. _No! It’s not time yet! It’s not time for that!_  
  
Times like this one.  
  
Her breath fogged in the still air. She tensed, fists clenched, knowing what would be there before she turned - yes. There. At the far end of the passage, enveloped in light so that only a blurred form remained, dual shadows streaming from its feet. She stepped forward, the air so cold that she felt ice would condense on her skin. The words sprang to mind again, screaming in her head.  
  
But she’d had time to think, while cast adrift in her own inner sea. And new words formed. _No. It’s not time yet. It won’t EVER be time for that!_  
  
The ocean drained at the thought. Kejik stepped out of the light, and a single shadow pooled at her feet, no more. Majiv relaxed, her hands unclenching, the fog her breath made dissipating - if it had ever been there at all. Kejik approached like a nervous deer, poised to flee at the first and slightest sound. “Lady Dhalsiv?”  
  
Never time for that. “Yes?” She was hungry and tired, for the first time in an eternity. She willed herself to remain upright, remembering how it felt - all the pain in her joints, the emptiness, the heavy ache behind her eyes. _Life._  
  
“You have a visitor.”  
  
She nodded. Food and rest would wait a little longer. The world had come back, and with it solid ground, solid thoughts - solid duties.“Very well. Take me to them.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Majiv has a visitor.

“So you know,” said Majiv, watching the newcomer as she stalked across the ruined hall. “Say what you came for.”  
  
“Came for? I came for nothing. Except perhaps expecting to tell Sarn that I still have no intention of stealing his precious kill.”  
  
“I’m glad you didn’t expect a glass of spirits and a nice talk by the fire.”  
  
“Oh, that would have been pleasant. But would you expect me to take advantage of someone in your state? Even if you go putting parts of yourself in little locked boxes. I’ve got principles, Dhalsiv.”  
  
“I know.” Even when Majiv looked away, casting her eyes over the by now familiar charred furniture and blackened walls, she knew the older woman was watching. “And I still don’t know why you came here. Who told you?”  
  
“Nobody told me anything.” She strode down the hall, towards where Majiv stood. Her hair was greyer, Majiv noticed. Practically white, vivid against the dark ruins. “I almost never came by, after what you and Sarn said the last time. Sometimes the world just compels us, doesn’t it Majiv? Gives us a few little pushes in the direction we need to go. So I think to myself yes, it’s cold, and winter’s well on its way, and I’ll be mad to stay up here any longer without lodgings, and yet I find myself knocking on your door again. And wishing I could say I was surprised.”  
  
“I never made you my guest tonight.” Majiv stood forward, looking her right in the eye. “Remember that.”  
  
“Oh, I know that. But you haven’t thrown me out yet, have you? And you might be master of this little domain of yours, but you’re not my lord and you’ll not stop me saying what a mess you and Sarn made of your family.”  
  
“What do you know about family?”  
  
She shrugged. “A fair amount. Helps I don’t have your blood. And if you want my failings, there’s always the fact that I never realised how big a mess you made until I walked through that door.”  
  
Majiv said nothing, merely reaching up, resting a hand on her narrow shoulder. Even through her heavy clothes, she could feel the thin, sharp bones pressing against her palm.  
  
She pushed. The old woman fell sprawling across the floor, and, before she could move, Majiv was on top of her, pinning her down, holding her thin wrists behind her back.  
  
“Ah, well then. If it must come to this, I see when I’m not welcome. If you’d be so good as to get off me, I’ll see myself out.”  
  
  
She’d just walked free. Majiv had nearly screamed at her as she walked off, still covered in soot, “Your lord _will_ hear of this!” But she knew that the first thing out of the beast-hunter’s mouth would be “Ah, so you _do_ know he’s still alive, then?” and she’d have lost either way. So she waited, until the doors slammed shut, and rang for Kejik.  
  
“Don’t say anything,” she said, as the young healer entered. “That was only an old friend. Now then. Can I trust you to guard the holding?”  
  
“Yes, Lady Dhalsiv.”  
  
“Good.” Majiv faced the doors - good, heavy things, blackened but not weakened by the fire. “My children are out there, lost. It’s time I helped them home.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She left in the face of winter.

Majiv set off in the early dawn’s light. To the east, the sky lay streaked with pink; westward, chill winds blew from the mountaintops, fresh and clean. If ice could have a scent, it would be that wind.  
  
It was a reminder she’d left her journey late. But she could spend no more time wandering empty halls, full of reminders of family long gone. She would strike south with what time remained, while the nights closed in and snow crept down the mountain slopes. Eventually she would have to overwinter, awaiting the thaw.  
  
But so, she knew, would her sons.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Majiv's first night from home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tense shift is due to the initial series of shorts format.
> 
> This is the last of the Majiv pieces, for now.

By the time she stops for the night, she’s already left behind Sarn’s lands - _her_ lands, she corrects herself. It’s not hard for her to find a place to sleep, even though she’s not willing to give her name. It’s been quiet, but she’s kept the news of Sarn’s death and her sons’ flight to herself. There’s no knowing what could happen, if word of an unoccupied holding got out. Even if Sarn himself, in his darker moments, mocked himself as the lord of nothing, a scrap of forest could be rich pickings for someone desperate enough.  
  
She wonders if she’s done the right thing, turning away like this, but who else is there to go south? She’s made too many mistakes so far, wasted too much time.  
  
Her luck on the road holds, and she is able to find a room to herself for the night. It’s spare and simple, little more than an empty fireplace, a mattress worn down by countless sleeping bodies, and a pile of blankets, but it’s a place where she can be alone. A place where she doesn’t have to be the stern leader or the fearless warrior. She lies down for the night, feeling the hard flagstones beneath the makeshift bed, and, with time to think, the gravity of her task sinks in. Tonight, where nobody can see, she will let herself be weak.  
  
When morning comes, she puts her memories away, safe where nobody can see, and sets off down the road without another thought.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A different kind of tarnishing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A character introduction piece.

She parts the grass, and sees it uncoil at her approach. Green scales glint like jewels in the golden sunlight, head raised, tongue flickering with interest as she holds out her hand. The world shatters as fangs sink into her skin, the very walls that keep the freezing mountain winds from this tiny, perfect patch of green wavering and collapsing in her vision.  
  
As the world blurs, a tiny core of her being hangs onto itself, deep within, observing and waiting. She’s done it.  
  
There will be trouble later. But for now, the streaming colours mean only one thing - success.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not what he expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another character introduction...

The head librarian pushed aside the last of the salted almonds at hearing a faint knock on the door, licking the last traces from his fingers. Pushing it open revealed nothing more than a small, Abiry man with a shock of ruffled, pale hair, looking up at him with eyes that didn’t quite manage to focus for a few seconds. Light danced around his form, shadows wavering ever so slightly on his skin.  
  
“Good evening to you,” the stranger said, raising a hand to his throat and rubbing it. “I am your new librarian.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On being challenged by Dhaymin, Jen tells the tale of the most terrifying of all creatures... the fingernail monster!

“And that,” Dhaymin said, “was the story of the little brother who didn’t know when to shut up.”  
  
“That was a terrible story!” Jen leaned over so he was closer to the fire, rubbing his hands in the glorious warmth.  
  
“You think you can do better?” Dhaymin said, leaning back with a smug smile on his face.  
  
“Course I can!”  
  
“Prove it then! Come on, let’s hear a good scary story, if you’re so smart!”  
  
“Right then, I will!” Jen edged around the fire, settling down beside Dhyamin. At their backs lay the forest, cold and dark. Their camp might have been the last vestige of humanity in the world, for all anyone could tell tonight. “I’m going to tell you a properly scary story. I’m going to tell a story about... _the fingernail monster_.”  
  
“The fingernail monster. Right.”  
  
“You don’t think that’s scary?”  
  
“Jen,” Dhaymin sat back up and sighed, his breath escaping in a cloud of fine mist. “There’s no such thing as the fingernail monster.”  
  
“We _hunt_ monsters.”  
  
“Yes, but..” Dhaymin waved a hand in the air. “Still no such thing. There’s monsters and monsters, right? The monsters we hunt... you’re not telling me any of those sleep all year and come out at midwinter. You’re not telling me they go after bad children to rip out their fingernails and wear them on their- no. There is no such thing as the fingernail monster.”  
  
“Awww, are you scared?” Jen placed a hand on Dhaymin’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “I’m sorry. I’ll not tell the story, then!”  
  
“I am _not_ scared!”  
  
“So you do want to hear the story?”  
  
“No. But if it’ll make you shut up, go on and tell it.”  
  
“I will.” Jen paused a brief moment, then continued. “Just so you know, this isn’t like your story. I’m not making this up. This actually happened... to me.” He leaned in closer. “You might even remember it.”  
  
“Well, if it happened to you, it can’t be very scary,” said Dhaymin, “because you’re still here telling me this shit. Also will you back off?” He edged away from Jen. “I’m blind, not deaf.”  
  
“Oh... sorry.” Jen retreated a little. “Well, it still happened to me. It was a long, long time ago, we were both still children. And it was one snowy midwinter. Well. Snowier than usual, I suppose. And dark. Er. Darker than usual.”  
  
“Was it the one where we all nearly starved to death? Because I’m sure I started seeing things back then, and that wasn’t the fingernail monster, I was just crazy from hunger.”  
  
“No. Further back than that. It was... no, not the one when Mother and Father didn’t come back and we had to eat that squirrel. Longer ago than that. You remember how Father used to light the candles and say the sun-chant at midnight? I remember how that felt. Like the winter had gone away, just for some short while, and I had everything I needed there, you, Mother, Father... it was like the world was warm and safe again. Like sitting around this fire. The world’s dark, and freezing cold, and deadly. But there’s this little spot of light, and you’re gathered around it, and you just know everything’s good as long as it’s there.” He took up a stick and gave the fire a nudge, pushing a long over and sending a spray of sparks into the air, creating an all-too brief shower of light before they faded and died. “I was scared of the fingernail monster too, when I was that age. I suppose everyone is. But I had my family with me, and when you’re that age you don’t care how scary the world is when you’ve got family, right? The fingernail monster could go freeze to death for all I cared.”  
  
“Wait, sorry. I forgot, is this the scary story game, or the happy tales of family love game?”  
  
“I’m building up to it! Anyway, I think we were too young to stay up until the dawn, so Father put us both to bed after he’d done the sun-chant. And everything felt normal for a while. You know, we had the usual arguments over whose side of the bed it was and who was stealing too many blankets and all that. I think you fell asleep fast. Me... I couldn’t. I lay awake for a while, and then I realised... I was too awake to sleep. I was so tired, I’d never been up so late in my life. But I couldn’t sleep. It was as if all the stories in my mind kept repeating, over and over. And I kept thinking... was I good enough? To avoid the fingernail monster? I remember hearing you breathing, all slow and quiet, and I though no, it’ll never come for Dhaymin. He’s always the good one, he’s the one Mother and Father are always proud of. No, it’s going to come for me. The bad one.”  
  
“Oh, I know!” said Dhaymin. “This is the talk about our feelings game!”  
  
“Shut up, I’m still building up to it! Well, I thought to myself, Mother and Father won’t ever be proud of you if you don’t try to be brave, will they? And I was going to be a beast-hunter when I grew up, and what sort of beast-hunter is scared of the fingernail monster? Maybe if I faced down the fingernail monster when it came for me, it’d see I was good and brave, and it’d leave me alone, but if I stayed in bed, it’d see I was really bad. And it’d come for me, and sneak into the room. I thought about the door swinging open. Thought I could see its shadow in the dark. And it’d hold me down, and rip out all my nails, one by one. There’d be blood everywhere, I’d be screaming, and you’d be lying there asleep and you’d never know. You’d never even wake up.”  
  
“Hey, come on now.” Dhaymin let out a quiet little laugh, and patted Jen on the shoulder. “I’d have woken up! And I’d have fought it! Wouldn’t have got past me. I’m supposed to be a beast-hunter too, remember?”  
  
“No, you wouldn’t. That’s how the fingernail monster works. You scream and scream, but nobody ever hears you, and you don’t stop screaming. Not until you’re too tired to. Or you lose enough blood. I’m not sure which, I suppose it’s whichever one comes first? So I thought no, that’s not how it’s going to be. I’m going to be brave, I’m going to face down the fingernail monster, I’m going to be a proper beast-hunter just like Mother and Father. I remember how cold it was. One of those winters where you wake up and there’s frost on the walls beside you. But I didn’t want to let that stop me. I went over to the window, pulled the drapes aside...  
  
“..it wasn’t there. I don’t know what I expected, a face looking in at me? Nobody told me what the fingernail monster is supposed to look like. But I remember seeing the stars. They looked so cold too. Like little specks of ice in the sky.” He looked up - the night was a clear one, the stars as vivid as his story. “Just like tonight. The stars are out now. It’s clear, no clouds, no moon, just the stars. They’re watching over us, again. But I don’t know why.  
  
“I stood there for a few minutes. Didn’t know whether to bolt or stay where I was. But the more I looked out of that window, the more I thought... it’s here, it’s waiting. I looked back, I could just see the bed, faint in the starlight. Could just hear you breathing under all those blankets and furs. You know how you always feel safe under a blanket? I thought that bed was the only safe place in the world. The only _warm_ place in the world. Just like here, tonight.” He could feel the cold at his back. There would be frost in the morning, maybe even snow, but morning was such a long way away. In the depth of the night, he sometimes felt as though it would never come.  
  
“Well, that’s the world, isn’t it?” said Dhaymin. “All that forest, all that sky, all that, well, nothing. Then those few little safe places. That’s just how things are, right?”  
  
“I know. All I wanted was to get back in bed and hide under that blanket. But I knew if I did that the monster would find me, because it wasn’t what a good, brave beast-hunter would do.”  
  
“I... don’t remember any of this.”  
  
“You were asleep the whole time! You didn’t know anything. That was when I ran from the room. I knew wherever it was, I had to find it. Had to be quiet, too. Couldn’t wake Mother or Father either. I mean... I know I was trying to be good by tracking down the monster, but I knew if they found me running around the holding at night I’d have done something wrong. I found myself in the hall at the end. I’d seen it every day of my life. But you go in there in the dark, on the longest night of the year, all alone, and it’s not the same place. You might have walked the same way to get there, but you’re not really there. And it was cold. Colder than I’d ever felt. I could have unlocked the door, walked outside, buried myself in the snow, and it wouldn’t be as cold as this. Felt like my skin was freezing over. I looked at my arm, and maybe it was the starlight, but I thought it was all covered in ice. And there was this tingling feeling, reaching all over me, down my arms, into my fingers, under my nails...  
  
“Nobody told me what the fingernail monster looked like. And in that moment, I thought - maybe it doesn’t look like anything. Maybe it’s the cold at midwinter, that feeling you get down your back when you hear something behind you...” He leaned closer again, and Dhaymin pulled away.  
  
“Stop it. You never met the fingernail monster. You’ve got all yours still!”  
  
“I know. Because I ran. I didn’t care about being a brave beast-hunter anymore. I didn’t care what Mother and Father would think if they found me running around the holding at night. I just wanted that last safe bit of the world. I ran all the way back, and I didn’t even know if I’d lost it, because it’s dark, and you can’t see it, and what if it was the dark, and the cold. and all those winter things? What if that’s why it only comes out at midwinter? I’ll tell you, be thankful it’s not midwinter tonight. Because you’ll be just like me, running for warmth. I got back into bed and pulled all the blankets over me. I don’t really remember the rest of the night. I thought I might suffocate under there, but that’s better than the fingernail monster. Maybe I fell asleep eventually, just before morning. It’s all a mess. The next morning everything went back to normal. Everyone walking around and acting as though nothing had happened. But I knew. I couldn’t tell anyone, but I knew, that night, I’d met the fingernail monster, and next year it would be waiting...”  
  
He sat back, gazing up at the stars again. Dhaymin sat in silence, occasionally holding his hands over the flame, perhaps lost in thought.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Jen said. “Was my story too scary?”  
  
“Course not! Everyone knows there’s no such thing as the fingernail monster!”  
  
“Mm,” Jen said. “It was just a bad winter, and you know what it’s like when you’re little. All that imagination...”  
  
“Mm. Jen?”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Go out and get more firewood, will you?”


End file.
